1. The Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to remote communication. More specifically, the disclosure relates to systems and methods of improving communication in a contact handling system between company agents and the customers with which the agents interact.
2. The Relevant Technology
Contact handling systems often act as communication intermediaries between companies and members of the public—often customers or potential customers. The communication may be initiated through inbound or outbound communication and can take place through: call centers, phone lines, facsimile, email, instant messaging (chat), short message service (SMS) messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), webcams, face-to-face communication with an agent, and other channels.
Traditional inbound communications to call centers often are made by persons seeking information, asking for help, or desiring to purchase products or services. Call centers also often initiate outbound communications to customers or potential customers to solicit new business, collect on overdue payments, or gather feedback. For purposes of this application, a customer is a person, device or automaton that contacts, attempts to contact, or is contacted by a call center or contact center for informational, educational, emergency, governmental, commercial, etc. purpose. A contact is the computer data that promotes and tracks the interaction of a customer with the contact handling system, regardless of the type of media involved (phone, email, SMS, etc.).
The traditional mode of customer communication employed by call centers world-wide has been the ubiquitous telephone call, often using the ordinary copper-based “landline.”
The ability for facsimile (aka fax) machines to transmit images over ordinary telephone lines has allowed customers to send documents to, or receive documents from, the contact handling system.
With the advent of the personal computer, contact handling systems were able to offer email capabilities. By the use of automated replies or pre-defined text fragments, contact handling systems were able to communicate with customers who did not expect or demand immediate information or problem resolution.
After the advent of the computer, the coming of the World-Wide Web brought the ability for a customer to enter a “Live Chat” with a contact handling system agent by clicking on a specified link on a web page. After some delay, characters typed at the computer appear to the contact handling system agent, who responds with questions or information. This exchange of messages is often time-delayed on one or both ends, with the expectation that interactions may be delayed, but for no more than a few minutes.
Mobile phones introduced the Short Message Service (SMS) as a communications tool for contact handling systems. SMS message exchanges resemble “chat” in many ways, except that the length of the messages may be constrained (often to 140 characters or less) and the expectation of intra-message exchange times may be in hours or even days. Software is available to allow personal computers to send and receive SMS messages.
Voice over Internet Protocol (Voice over IP, or VoIP) added the capability for people to use computing devices for exchanging voice communications over the internet. This capability may be achieved using VoIP-specific hardware. Additionally, software on personal computers allows people to make telephone calls to others, including contact handling systems, using common audio inputs (such as a microphone) and outputs (speakers or headphones) available on most personal computers. Such software is commonly referred to as a “Soft Phone,” since it offers the functions of a telephone via software rather than through dedicated telephony hardware. Performance and expectations are nearly the same for VoIP calls as for the traditional “landline”, except that voice quality and increased propagation delay may detract from the user experience.
Inexpensive digital video cameras, often called “Webcams” were introduced for personal computers to enrich the personal interaction between caller and called party, and combine the video feed with microphone audio to enable inexpensive videoconferencing. This highly-interactive arrangement has also been made available by some contact handling systems as an option for customer interaction.
Some environments support the possibility of using any of the aforementioned types of media either singly or in simultaneous combination. With proper software, two such environments may include the “smart phone” and the personal computer.
The so-called “smart phone” is a portable device that can combine the capabilities of a telephone, VoIP telephone, webcam, SMS terminal, email client, and web browser, with the added benefit of being able to run software applications that can interface and interact with any of these. As far as media interaction is concerned, the smart phone is conceptually very similar to a personal computer.
Each of these media types has its advantages. Voice or teleconferencing offers a low-effort richness of expression (including physical and audible cues of emotional state) and often the most prompt issue resolution. Email, chat and SMS exchanges have the advantages of not requiring a dedicated block of time, and the ability to enter information that may be large or complex to describe (such as an account number, web URI, or other text that may be large or may therefore be easier to copy-and-paste). Many contact handling systems support the use of a single media type for communication from/to a customer.
Language translation by computer (“machine translation”) is becoming increasingly capable as a means for communicating between persons who otherwise could not. In addition to text-based communication exchanges, the use of automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis makes it possible to engage in machine-translated conversations between parties.
In these customer communication exchanges, contact handling systems often interact with customers' sensitive information. Federal and state law (e.g., the Sarbanes-Oxley Act), industry standards (e.g., Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards [PCI DSS]), and/or customer expectations may affect the treatment of sensitive information by the contact handling systems.
The inventions disclosed and claimed herein illustrate advantages of using more than one media type during communication as discovered by the inventors thereof, and the further ability to add or transition to different media types during the course of communication in order to use any advantage of any media type, singly, transitionally, or simultaneously, and may include machine translation to further aid in communications or social network connections to facilitate communication.